Every document filed in court not in public domain, says Tata

Industrialist Ratan Tata Friday contended in the Supreme Court that every document filed in the court could not be carried by media by deeming it being in public domain.

"First of all this public domain theory is wrong. Simply that something is filed in the court is assumed to be in public domain," senior counsel Harish Salve, appearing for Tata, told a bench of Justice G.S. Singhvi and Justice Gopala Gowda.

Tata has moved the apex court seeking to restrain media from publishing the transcripts of the tapes of the former corporate lobbyst Niira Radia's tapped phones.

Radia's phones were under surveillance by the income tax department.

Not questioning the government' right to tap the phones but its responsibility to keep the recordings secure, Salve said: "My privacy has to be protected. Government can't throw up its hands and say that I had tapped it and if it gets leaked, then I can't do anything about it."

Alleging that it were the investigating agencies that were leaking the information, Salve said, "Truth is that investigating agencies use the media... it is very dangerous. Why were they leaked. Whom were they aimed to embarrass."

Contending that media was not above law, Salve said that he has no doubt that original leaks took place because of corporate rivalry.

He said that media was not above law and had the option of seeking to access information through RTI and letting the government decide.